Bloggers Hit New Low on Jill Carroll Story

Bloggers Hit New Low on Jill Carroll Story

Ellen Goodman blasts the bloggers who couldn't wait to shoot off their mouths about Jill Carrol before they had any facts.

In 2004, they proved the power of the Internet as a great equalizer when they confronted the house of CBS and Dan Rather over Bush's military records.[..]Two years later, we have -- ready, fire, aim -- the Jill Carroll affair. These attacks raise the question of what bloggery is going to be when it grows up. An Internet op-ed page? Or a polarized, talk-radio food fight?

Power must be used wisely. I recall being blasted by Jim Geraghty on the NRO website when the bloggers were piling on Eason Jordan. Jim Geraghty had written about my comment:

“Those who are hot on Eason’s trail are only those who wish to inflict some political damage on the few in the mainstream media who still possess extreme courage of conviction.”

He said:

You know, I try (and sometimes fail) to refrain from speculating about others’ motives. I would appreciate it if others extended the same courtesy to me. Everybody, Ms Camwell? Mickey Kaus? Jay Rosen? Glenn Reynolds? They’re all trying to attack “the few in the mainstream media who still possess extreme courage of conviction”? Come on.

I tend to be blunt, but I also consider myself to be a principled and conscientious human being. I can see what is directly in front of my eyes, and what I saw was a concerted effort to ruin a professional journalist's integrity for speaking out on behalf of fellow professionals. I am a "little" blogger with a voice that was big enough to cause Jim Geraghty to feel that he had to defend himself. Why? Because I hit a sensitive spot. I can never assign motives to one person, but I could clearly see the overt motives of the blogmob. I don't get on my blog with the fierce determination to "gun" for Brit Hume's professional integrity. (He does a good job of ruining it all by himself by simply opening his mouth on Fox News each day).

Those who live by this kind of determination risk to be called on it when they succeed. While they may think they have good reason to join in the attack, they cannot distance themselves from it later on and try to look removed and innocent. They succeeded with Dan Rather. They succeeded with Eason Jordan. They succeeded with Trent Lott. Make no mistake, these were blog campaigns and they were witchhunts. Trent Lott didn't deserve what happened to him. Neither did Dan Rather and Eason Jordan.

________________________

"This was a guy caught up in the tension of the moment. He deserves the benefit of the doubt."

David Gergen, referring to Eason Jordan who had just returned from Baghdad and was still "deeply distraught" over the journalists who'd died in Iraq. [WaPo 2-8-05]

Eason Jordan to New Organizations: You're Lost/Admit It.

Eason Jordan to New Organizations: You're Lost/Admit It.

I'm sure you remember the resignation of Eason Jordan from CNN. He's now with an organization called Iraq Safety Net and he's telling the news organizations that they've lost their own way in Iraq, citing a deficiency in the Committee to Protect Journalists for an inaccurate reporting of the number of journalists killed in Iraq.

In a USA Today article about the state of journalism in the Middle East by Souheila Al-Jadda, we are reminded of the dangers of reporting from Iraq and the greater Middle East:

Being a journalist in the Middle East can have fatal consequences, where the road to freedom is often paved with blood.

My Blogging Year 2005

My Blogging Year 2005



I wish you a very Happy New Year!




January - Presidential Inauguration (and a blizzard in D.C.)

________________




February - I was added to Anonymoses' Blogollage

My vote for Best Coverage of the Eason Jordan resignation: Jay Rosen/Press Think

________________




March - The Onondaga Indian Nation filed a land rights action different from any aboriginal land rights claim in U.S. history.

_________________




April - I attended the CUNY/Open Center conference on Examining the Real Agenda of the Religious Far Rightin New York City.

__________________






May - Made the Cover of YES Weekly - the Alternative Newspaper in Greensboro NC with some of the grooviest Blogsboro bloggers on the planet.

The Second Annual Personal Democracy Forum conference took place at CUNY in Manhattan. (photos)

__________________





June - Iddybud Debuts On CNN's "Inside the Blogs"

My vote for Best Coverage of the Randy "Duke" Cunningham scandal: Josh Marshall/Talking Points Memo.

___________________




July - I had the great pleasure of meeting New York's next governor Eliot Spitzer in Liverpool, N.Y.

The first Blogher conference took place in California. The second BlogHer "Conference '06" will take place Friday July 28 and Saturday July 29, 2006 in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In late July, 1,300+ people attend the Spiritual Activism Conference in Berkeley, California (and hundreds more had to be turned away). The Network of Spiritual Progressives (NSP) is launched. It is a grassroots interfaith organization formed around the ideas articulated in Rabbi Michael Lerner’s article, “Why America Needs a Spiritual Left.” A second conference will be held in Washington D.C. in May, 2006.

___________________




August - I was greatly saddened by Peter Jennings' death.

___________________




September - Appeared as guest blogger all week at the One America (Senator John Edwards) website

___________________




October - John Edwards Invites Young People to Join the Fight Against Poverty

Converge South, held in Greensboro, NC, was an important blogger happening.

___________________




November - I began to imagine a real (non-violent) solution to the problems in Iraq and around the world. I spoke of a new global alliance. Some said I was a dreamer - but I know I'm not the only one.

Greatest New Emerging Political Issue:
A Wider Public Discussion of Faith and Values

A New Faith and Value Blogacracy Emerges: Talk To Action

A New Activist Group of Spiritual Progressives Work to Make Positive Change: Network of Spiritual Progressives

Best Faith Activist Websites: Sojourners and Tikkun

____________________




December - I lost my dear mother after her valiant three-year struggle with cancer. I thank everyone who sent their condolences and prayers.

_____________________





The Nation - The Most Valuable Progressives of 2005 By John Nichols

NPR - Separating the Footnotes from the Milestones by Ron Elving

My Right to Rant: Jeff Jacoby is Full of Crap

My Right to Rant: Jeff Jacoby is Full of Crap

Can't the Boston Globe at least get a reasonably honest Conservative to write for them?

I think this is the most unfair (and untrue) statement I've ever heard.

"..there is a difference. Nixon really did a face an overwhelmingly hostile press corps. Kerry, Gore, and Clinton, by contrast, benefit from a news media that is overwhelmingly liberal, as countless surveys have shown." - Jeff Jacoby

Surveys schmurveys. Clinton was not protected by the alleged "liberal" media during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The supposedly "liberal" MSM "news" networks piled on him and smothered all of us with the tawdry details 24/7, just like those who hawk gossip rags.
As Marvin Kalb said in 2002, "According to Bernie [Goldberg's] thesis, the Washington press corps is a very 'elitist liberal press corps'. Why in God's name, if he's right, would they have gone out and lacerated and destroyed a liberal president? That doesn't make any sense whatsoever!"

During the last election season, the partisan Swift Boat vets were given free reign by MSM with barely a challenge.

Howard Dean's yell was turned into a circus when only the version of his yell with the blown-out-of proportion volume was shown again and again and again by the MSM. (And the Democratic party allowed him to be eaten alive without a peep)."If the media are “liberal” and the media had anointed Dean as the “liberal” – why would they beat the scream to death over the airwaves during the most critical moments of Dean’s campaign? In fact, if the mainstream media were truly “liberal”, they would have downplayed it to Dean’s benefit." - Ilpundit


Mainstream Media:
If they're so powerful and "liberal",
why do Republicans keep kicking ass
in the elections?
MSM is not "liberal."
It's "ineffective"."

If any of the following was true (which it's not) - if "liberal" MSM were doing something newsworthy and if they were effective at doing so - then John Kerry would surely be President today:

"The right-of-center Fox News cannot hold a candle to the combined left-of-center output of ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, and PBS."

"Cannot hold a candle"?!!
Hello??
Obviously, they CAN.
CNN is not any more liberal, in a political sense, than Entertainment Tonight. CNN has gone from a reputable news organization to a lame entertainment network since FOX starting kicking their kiesters in viewer ratings. One of their best newsmen, Eason Jordan, was sent flying when CNN allowed themselves to be cowed by Conservative pressure. CNN no longer knows the meaning of real investigative journalism, with the exception of Lou Dobbs and some of their reporters in Iraq ie: Christiane Amanpour (and she admits that the press has muzzled itself).
Jacoby never mentions MSNBC, who has enough Conservative schlock (like Scarborough's verbal diarrhea and the recently-cancelled Dennis Miller's boring Dem-hating "humor") to turn any liberal's stomach.

How Much Longer Can the Boston Globe Continue to Prop Up
Such A Buffoon as a Credible Columnist?

I know this sounds crass, but I think Jeff Jacoby is full of crap and I can't think of any plainer way to say it.
Who does he think he's kidding?
Doesn't intellectual honesty mean anything at all to the Boston Globe editorial staff?
It's time for Americans to wake up and see what Jeff Jacoby is trying to get away with and how much the Boston Globe editors allow him to get away with. My intelligence and common sense is insulted by his categorization of the press as "hostile" to a President who was a proven criminal. Those Nixon-era press people did their jobs! The people on the inside also did the right thing. Where are those people today? George McGovern made this statement to Fox News Radio:

"We need someone like that who is highly placed to tell us what's really going on. We know that we were misled on Iraq."

Parallels are easily drawn to what Bush and Cheney have been allowed to get away with because we no longer seem to have an accomplished investigative press or brave, ethical editors. Geov Parrish recently wrote the opinion that Watergate, as it was reported in 1974, would never have been reported today. Parrish says:

"It's hard not to contrast the frenzy that greeted the revelation of a 30-year-old secret with the thudding indifference U.S. media has given the Downing Street Memo. The memo has scarcely been mentioned in the country's leading newspapers, and has been completely ignored by evening network news."

So much for the "liberal media."

BBA

Truthout's 4-Part Series on Journalists & Military

Truthout's 4-Part Series on Journalists & Military

In case you've missed it, here are the links to the first three:

Part I | Hearing What Eason Jordan Said
Part II | Army Failed to Probe Its Attack on Palestine Hotel
Part III | Targeting the Media the American Way

Part IV is yet to come.

Exposing Hypocrisy

Exposing Hypocrisy

Nicola Calipari, by witness accounts, died while acting as a human shield for freed hostage/Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena.

Now, think about that while you re-read Jim Gibbons' recent statement.

Even though it's likely that the troops were just doing their job, Eason Jordan's words are ringing through my mind this morning.

Now, think about the right-wing-bloggers' witch-hunt that silenced Eason's professional concerns about journalists in Iraq.

I'll say no more.


Atrios comments here.

Joe Gandelman has collected some comments here.

Say! Is that Rob Corddry?

Say! Is that Rob Corddry?

Or is it Dino Ironbody?


* Click on photo to see video at Crooks and Liars

*see the Daily Show last night? Jay Rosen made a guest appearance and was an extremely good sport.

Speaking of Jay, he's got another good analysis on the press de-certification issue. I agree with his view that Howard Kurtz is off-base in his insistence that the problems of the press are mostly self-driven scandals. Jay says:

".. [Kurtz quote] "Nothing the White House has done has damaged the media's credibility more than what the profession has done to itself." And he lists all the recent goings-on from Jayson Blair and Eason Jordan to declining ratings, in order to ask: are any of these Bush's fault? (He left out excessive credulity on the Weapons of Mass Destruction story, which is on most people's list of recent press failures. That, of course, was Bush's fault.)

In my view Kurt'z judgment on this is wrong-- very wrong for a beat reporter with his experience. His attempt to de-excite us about de-certification deserves to fail....
....Mike Allen of the Washington Post, Kurtz's colleague, did not forget what administrations do. On October 8 he wrote: "Although all presidents are kept somewhat removed from reality because of security concerns and their staffs' impulse for burnishing their image, Bush's campaign has taken unprecedented steps to shield him from dissenters and even from curious, undecided voters."

Kurtz says people forget what presidents do. But I didn't forget (and I'm people, Howard.)....

Jay is right on. He's "people", alright. I agree that Howard Kurtz should "understand the thesis he is rejecting, and not rely on the entirely superficial approach of picking out two or three things Bush is accused of that Clinton was also accused of." Howard should read Jay carefully and try to understand the democracy-destroying ramifications of the de-certification of the fourth estate.

John Leo's Way Off The Mark

John Leo's Way Off The Mark

In a recent column about Eason Jordan by John Leo, he says:

Here's the retroframing: Some mainstream media fell back on their traditional view of bloggers as inaccurate, upstart nobodies who dare to criticize their betters. Last week, for instance, The New York Times, which had looked the other way for two weeks, ran a story dripping with disdain. Headlined "Bloggers as News Media Trophy Hunters," it offered a simple-minded view of bloggers as wild conservatives out to collect liberal scalps. The story was laced with quotes assuring us that bloggers are a "lynch mob" of "salivating morons," fanning fears of "the growing power of rampant, unedited dialogue" on the Internet (as opposed to the completely reliable and unrampant reports in mainstream media).

I am a blogger, too.

John Leo probably hasn't read me, but I cannot imagine he hasn't read Press Think, which is the best full-scope discussion of the matter available online. If he had, he couldn't say, unless he was being intellectually dishonest, that the ex-post-facto reports from the mainstream media have come from nothing more than thin air, partisanship, and big ego.

On the contrary, they've come from non-partisan blog discussion and analysis.

I can offer John Leo much more than "retroframing".

I can offer John Leo "of-the-moment" blog reports on what I witnessed. I got on top of the story on February 2 and blogged nearly every day about what I witnessed. Sometimes I blogged more than once in a day about it.

Those conservatives were not wild in their effort to damage what they see as "old media". They were calm, extremely open, extremely vocal, and well-organized.

You can be calm, cool, collected, and still salivate.

John Leo's calling the CNN newsroom "partisan".

I know he's wrong. If they are ignoring stories they shouldn't ignore, that would make them indifferent, avoiding, and ineffective.
Not partisan. That's a mythical acusation.

Look at the title chosen for John Leo's opinion column:

"PARTISAN NEWSROOMS HAD BETTER GET USED TO BLOGGERS"

If you're going to spin at that way, John Leo, then "Partisan columnists had better get used to bloggers", too.

Blogs and Mainstream - A new balance of power

Blogs and Mainstream - A new balance of power

"There is something in the virtual air and the winds of change seem to be blowing harder".

At Blogcritics.org, Margaret Romao Tolgo provides an analysis of how blogs are making their way into the mainstream and are directly affecting the news.

I couldn't agree more with this comment by Ms. Tolgo:

The blogger coverage of Gannongate appears to have fallen victim to partisan spin that spun out of control. In their zeal to discredit Mr. Guckert/Gannon, the bloggers covering him got caught up in a salacious sidestory and lost sight of the most important issue which was suspicion that the White House might be engaging in the manipulation of the press -- a most grave breech of our founding principles, if it is true -- not that Mr. Guckert/Gannon used a pseudonym..or registered domains for gay pornography sites after having written anti-gay articles.

In the story of J.D. Guckert, it isn't too late for the bloggers to steer and steady their course toward the "most important point". I have been stressing this point since the blog-story broke. While the tawdry gay-escort portion of the tale is relevant to the story, the bigger issues must remain the focus. As evidenced in yesterday's Washington Post Ombudsman's editorial, the bloggers have done their job in bringing Guckert's situation to the forefront. The mainstream, if you believe Michael Getler, will now seize this story as "their own".


I was quoted in Ms. Tolgo's article:

Jude Nagurney Camwell of The American Street offered this assesment (sic), "The ‘Right-wing mouth machine’ would like us all to think that Eason Jordan was 'bad' and 'unAmerican' for saying what he said. CNN has been complicit by their reticence to talk about tough issues. They wound up to be the biggest loser. They lost Eason Jordan. Eason was guilty before being proven innocent by no other process except one: the blog-trial."

I stress my point once more:

Eason Jordan lost his position with CNN due to a blog trial. There was never a mainstream media discussion. The Star Tribune has a piece (ex post facto) about the Eason Jordan case, pointing out the fact that Jordan was out of a job before some major media outlets even reported there was a controversy.

Right wing blogs seized the moment in the case of Jordan.

CNN allowed themselves to be abused by the court of the right-wing in the rolling vigilante thunder of the new storm called the blog-mob.


In the Star Tribune article, there are statements from Bill Roggio, a New Jersey computer technician who helped put together the Easongate.com Web site

"I think that we're definitely being accused of going on a witchhunt and I think that was unfortunate."

From a rational standpoint, this looked as if it was, indeed, a concerted political effort to promote an activism which has become all too familiar to call it anything less than a witchhunt.

Easongate: J'accuse.

"The reason a story like this broke is because the media ignored it and the bloggers pursued it."

The "reason" the story broke, I would respectfully contend, is due to the inescapable fact that people with a political agenda (which they cannot deny or rationalize away) wanted to make Jordan's statement a focal point in the headlines.

Roggio says he believes 'Jordan's resignation was justified'. I could not disagree with him more. There was no fireable offense committed by Eason Jordan. There was no public debate, other than the trial-by-blog by a non-balanced right-wing kangaroo court which seems to wield an unreasonably weighted influence upon the mainstream media today.

Roggio dons a mask of hypocrisy when asked for a statement about the J.D. Guckert story that is just now heating up in the mainstream and coming up for public debate in the mainstream arena. Bloggers uncovered evidence linking Guckert to online sites suggestive of gay pornography. Roggio says:

"That's ugly. It's an embarrassment to me as a blogger."

I wonder if Mr. Roggio might think that a person posing as a trusted and seasoned journalist, getting [far] too-easily credentialed for the White House Press corps, is a situation in which he should have any concern, especially when we've learned that the news organization Guckert represented did not even become a "news organization" until after he'd somehow squeezed his way into the White House press room?

Why wouldn't Bill Roggio care about this story unless he was politically motivated to want to sweep it under a rug?

More importantly, why would he see the citizen-journalists' act of uncovering the story as "ugly" in any way, shape or form?

No one has made up stories about J.D. Guckert. If the truth surrounding J.D. Guckert is ugly, we can only blame the light of day.

Who can be embarrassed by the light of day?

Putting Guckert's unusual activities in the White House Press corps into clear focus will work to expose the same right-wing misinformation-carousel that has caused Eason Jordan to lose his position by no more than an unjust blog-mob tarnishing.

It's no shame for the Bush administration to shape their agenda.
It is against every common American value we share for the administration to use the media to twist reality and truth to fit its agenda.

Any possibility whatsoever that Guckert was allowed to be in that room to assist that perversion of reality on behalf of the Executive is worthy of a high level of investigation.

It's time for reasonable and caring citizens to put a stop to this political manipulation of American journalism.

That concern isn't ugly.
It's based upon shared American values.

To the bloggers at LGF

To the bloggers at LGF

My fine fellow Americans at Little Green Footballs, you think I'm calling the kettle black by insinuating that you participated, in concert with other right-wing blogs, in a well-orchestrated activity which resulted in grave harm to the career and reputation of a 23-year veteran of CNN news, a brilliant, decent, and hard-working man with years of on-the-job experience.

Was this a case where Jordan actually said something inflammatory? Of course. It cannot be denied.

Do I think he should have resigned? No. I don't.

He says he wanted to save CNN from controversy. If any of you say you think you know any other reason why he left so quickly, I will remind each of you that you could not know. Conjecture just won't do.

My observations on the gang-mentality that led him to resign are just what they are. I saw it unfolding before my eyes and I blogged about it. I realize that you did not appreciate my observations about what was occurring. I won't rehash it again. It's over.

I make no apology. I'm a blogger, just like you.

Little Green Footballs people, you categorize my follow-ups on the ongoing Jeff Gannon story as "screeching". It seems that you cannot imagine how I could possibly reconcile the hypocrisy that you see in me.

Jay Rosen recently said that "the solution to miscommunication has to be more communication." I agree. CNN failed Eason Jordan in their failure to defend him with open discussion and a demand for the tape's release. They could have foiled what I saw to be the Right's distinct intent to damage the "old media".

The fact that CNN refused to even talk about it leads me to believe that they thought they couldn't fight the Right's influence. That, to me, is very telling.

I see Jeff Gannon as a wicked symptom of the very same gang mentality that helped to easily destroy Eason Jordan's CNN position.

Gannon was not Eason Jordan. They are two different people and these are two different stories. Each story needs to be based upon its own merits. It's easy to spin them together, but they are not the same story.

Gannon was a professional imposter (not to mention a man-ho) and perhaps he was a known shill for the White House. We still don't know. All signs are pointing to the suspicion that he was a political operative.

None of us know the full scope of the story to date. There are stones still unturned.

Unturned stones is precisely what an investigation is all about, Little Green Footballs people.

I see a disturbing trend, in the case of Jeff Gannon. As Frank Rich wrote in a recent column:
By my count, "Jeff Gannon" is now at least the sixth "journalist" (four of whom have been unmasked so far this year) to have been a propagandist on the payroll of either the Bush administration or a barely arms-length ally like Talon News while simultaneously appearing in print or broadcast forums that purport to be real news.

A real investigation isn't "He said this (or that)! Let's complain to his employer! Let's petition! Let's act en masse to put the pressure on his employer to fire him!"

You may call that a really good investigation.
I call it an extremely effective dogpile.

In the case of Jordan, the Davos tape you so badly wanted means almost nothing now, and I am proud to say that I never once advocated its stifling.

You can dogpile on me all you'd like, LGF folks, but in the end, I am one person who gets paid a big fat ZERO and am under the influence of no one and nothing except for my own conscience.

I stand alone, I have one opinion, I abhor cultural propaganda and shoddy journalism, and consider myself to be no hypocrite.

I wish each one of you peace and hope you will never fail to closely examine your own individual conscience in all endeavors.

I also hope Eason Jordan finds a wonderful new job and that Jeff Gannon never again attempts to pass himself off as anything more than a willing participant in the propagandizing of the media.

-- Jude

Gannon story: Let's Get to the Heart of Serious Matters

Gannon story: Let's Get to the Heart of Serious Matters

I know newspapers love gossip and controversy. It sells. In the case of Jeff Gannon, there's more than enough Enquirer-style gossip to go around.

I always thought newspapers like The Washington Post were above that type of journalism, especially when there's so much more to a particular story than meets the eye.

Howard Kurtz (and Post editors), I''m sorry to be critical, but I have to be critical.
I'm a blogger.
It's my job.

"Online Nude Photos Are Latest Chapter In Jeff Gannon Saga"
Is that the best title you could come up with?
Sure, it's an eye-catcher. Nude Online Photos.
It looks like a porn site come-on.
It makes the whole Jeff GAnnon story look like kerfluffle.

Shame on you.

Your focus on the story is wrong, if you expect your readers to take the more serious aspects of the story to heart.

And there ARE serious aspects.

QUOTE:

More than anything, though, it is Gannon's personal online activities that has kept the story churning.

Maybe there's a method to that madness? Perhaps this story has to be kept in the "churning" stage so the deeper, far more serious issue can finally be brought to the surface by the painfully-slow-to-react (and ethically misguided) mainstream media.

I can hardly believe that Howard Kurtz felt it was terribly important to add the "woe-is-she" commentary about Gannon's poor elderly Ma getting phonecalls from those nasty liberals. What is that supposed to prove? Life is tough in the fast lane. We're all accountable for what we choose to do. Gannon lived fast and knew the consequences.

Did Howard Kurtz write a sob-story about Eason Jordan's family?
Sh*t, no.

This is the kind of double standard that gets me fired up. It's no wonder the mainstream media gets played for fools by the Right.

Gannon sought out an interview with Joseph Wilson just after Wilson's wife was outed as a CIA agent, likely by someone in the upper ranks in the Bush administration.

As a person with natural curiosity and who has closely followed the Joseph Wilson story, I can only suspect that Jeff Gannon, whose politics I have come to clearly understand, was planning a purposefully antagonistic and hopefully damaging story on Wilson.

Worse, he had access to information in a very sensitive internal memo. Where he got it (or information from it) is in question. He says he got it from a legitimate source, but frankly, I wonder why anyone should believe him.

This is dirt, people. I think we're talking bottom of the scumbucket.

There was a bitter vendetta involved. Joe Wilson dared to come out and challenge President Bush's State of the Union comments. The attitude of this ethically ugly administration would lead me to believe they would think: No one does that and gets away with it.

Gannon's been made a part of the investigation of the outing of Ms. Plame. His shady outline is being filled in by blogger investigation. Someone made sure his shiny head was in that White House Press room asking snarky, underhanded questions about the loyal political opposition. I want to know who that was. If we're going to have any trust in the White House at all, it's important that we get this clear in our minds.

Everyone should care about this. Not just "liberals".

The mainstream media should have a reporter concentrating on getting to the serious facts about Jeff Gannon. How did he get access to the White House Press Corps with such ease?

What if Gannon (as your doctor) did a botch-job on you in the ER, and afterward you found out he was someone totally different than he was supposed to be - that instead of going to medical school, he'd had a three-day crash course? What would you do when you discovered that he wasn't Dr. Gannon, ER practioner, but that he was Jim Guckert, gay escort of the Internet? Wouldn't you ask the hospital some tough questions?

____________

Lex of Lex Files comments:

"..we also should be wondering who on Gannon/Guckert's client list was a government official with access to sensitive information. Patronage of a prostitute by such a person (irrespective of sexual orientation) could leave him/her open to blackmail and so represents a huge security risk."

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., has asked the White House for documents showing how Gannon got his White House credentials. I wonder if the Washington Post has jumped on that story? I would hope so. After all, a newspaper in the heart of Washington D.C. is the first newspaper about whom you would think a scoop would be forthcoming! I checked and saw nothing thus far!

Jeff Gannon Update

Jeff Gannon Update

At The Nation, David Corn has a few things to say today about recent blog-outings. I think he's going far too easy on the people who've worked in concert to "kill off" Eason Jordan. I'd imagine David would have felt differently had he been the target.

"..let me raise a cautionary note or two. The blogosphere in recent months has become the piling-on-osphere. When there is blood in the water--or on the keyboard--bloggers rush in for the kill...So far all of the victims have deserved the whacks..CNN executive Eason Jordan did not immediately clarify, back up or retract comments in which he reportedly claimed that US troops in Iraq had purposefully targeted and killed journalists. Yet the speed and drama of these trials-by-blog may be cause for quasi-concern not unfettered celebration. Am I being a semi-old fuddy-duddy? Could be."

I have to say I was left a bit cold by David's assessment. Eason did immediately clarify, but the ones who wanted his head never wanted to hear them.

On Jeff Gannon, I somewhat agree with David. think the Internet/gay-escort angle is a bit of a circus sideshow (The guy was a total creep). Yet, I don't think David or any of us should run away in fear of being called a "vigilante" over this particular story.

The aspect of the story with which I am seriously concerned is the one which surrounds any involvement he may have been allowed to play in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame..before or after the time she was outed. I ask myself, why would this untrained, inexperienced journalist who squeezed himself, somehow, into the White House Press Corps, be privy to confidential information and internal memos when seasoned, hard-scrabble journalists couldn't get to them? It just doesn't "smell" right. Since Gannon has run away from the public's sight so very quickly, it should make any curious investigator want to latch onto the story.

Corn says:

"....Another serious angle in the Gannon/Guckert story. In October 2003, Gannon/Guckert interviewed former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, a Bush critic whose wife months earlier had been outed in a Robert Novak column as an undercover CIA officer by unidentified administration officials. During this interview, Gannon/Guckert cited "an internal government memo prepared by US intelligence personnel that details a meeting in early 2002 where your wife, a member of the agency for clandestine service working on Iraqi weapons issues, suggested that you could be sent to investigate the reports." The question is, how did a hooker-turned-reporter end up with this leak of classified information? Did White House officials hand it to Gannon/Guckert because he was in cahoots with them? Gannon has refused to say if he had a copy of this memo or if someone had read him what it said. In December 2003--when he was not under fire--Gannon/Guckert wrote that this "information did not come from inside the administration," and he strongly hinted that his source was on Capitol Hill, referring to the Senate intelligence committee...

..Gannon/Guckert has noted that FBI agents working on the Wilson leak probe did contact him and that he would not tell them the source of the information. Apparently, he has not been subpoenaed by Patrick Fitzgerald, the Justice Department attorney investigating the Wilson leak...

...There has been some public confusion about this aspect of the Gannon/Guckert story. Representative Louise Slaughter, a New York Democrat, has called upon Fitzgerald to "investigate the leaking of a classified Central Intelligence Agency memo containing the identity of undercover agent Valerie Plame to a man at the center of the White House Press Briefing Room scandal, 'Jeff Gannon.'" The classified memo came not from the CIA but from the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and by the time its contents reached Gannon, Valerie Wilson (nee Plame) had already been identified as a CIA officer.

Gannon/Guckert, according to the record so far, was a bit player in the Wilson affair. The leak he received was an after-the-fact leak. But it is certainly rather curious that this particular reporter obtained any classified information from any government source. Slaughter and others are justified in calling for an investigation. It is not beyond belief that partisans in the White House or on Capitol Hill saw Gannon/Guckert as a safe outlet..."

Anthony Wade strongly disagrees with David Corn on many of his points.


Dave Johnson at Seeing the Forest says:

"If you are following the Gannon story - the right-wing fake "reporter" who was somehow able to infiltrate the White House using an alias, even gaining access to the President and classified CIA documents - then you know that the whole right-wing machine is now saying this is all an attack by "liberal BLOGGERs" on the guy's "private life." Wow. This is how the supposed National Security crowd - "keep us safe" and all that - react. Do they demand that this huge hole in our national security be closed? Do they demand that someone answer for this? OF COURSE NOT! They use it as an opportunity to attack "liberals" while just making things worse."

Skippy says we should be wondering how a miscreant breaking the law somehow got access to a classified memo about valerie plame.

Temerity Leads to Grave Injustice

"Be not intimidated... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice.

-- John Adams


Temerity Leads to Grave Injustice

Self-righteous temerity mixed with just enough lies necessary to convince good people of a moral purpose has led to the Iraq war.

The same self-righteous temerity and jabber-jawing about a higher purpose (while covering the actual reason - vigilante justice) has caused Eason Jordan to be professionally removed from the mainstream.

Self-righteous rhetoric is often spewed about a respect for life. In the past four years, I have seen a tremendously disturbing breakdown in our culture's respect for life.

For instance, you cannot possibly think of using a stem cell gleaned from an embryo, but you can see a perfectly innocent family of ten eliminated with a misguided bomb and not blink an eyelash.

You brand others as 'evil' for demanding equal justice for a prisoner who was too poor to afford a hotshot attorney and is sitting on death row, but you can hear about 3 of your own soldiers dying in Iraq one day, and you go on eating your dinner, accepting it as just another day, just another body, for the fight against WMD...I mean rogue leaders with terror connections...I mean, tin pot dictators with rape rooms...I mean, in the grande march toward freedom...I mean, the rush for pipe line domination.
* Just what are they dying for, anyway, after we sort through all those lies?

American citizens: How is it that you have lost your sense of reality? How have you so easily forgotten your sense of humanity? Compassion? Truth? Empathy? Honesty? Why do you fail to speak out for these values, if they are values you espouse?

In a recent blogpost on Eason Jordan's resignation, Bernard Moon asks:

"Imagine if Jordan's statement went unchallenged and taken as truth?
What effect would it have on the morale of our troops?
And a further battering of America's image abroad?"

I ask my readers to think about the government that fails to cherish or respect the truth.

Gee, I don't have to imagine that the Bush administration's irresponsible statements in the lead-up to the Iraq war went unchallenged by the mainstream press.
They did.
The lies were, for all intents and purposes, taken as Gospel truth.
They were never investigated.
Hard questions were omitted from the press.
Soft questions were given the back-seat treatment on page 8, far from the focus of the public.

Bernard Moon raises a red herring when he asks "What if Jordan Eason's words had gone unchallenged?"

In an open society with a working and healthy democracy, we can always expect statements like Jordan's to be challenged.

Moon wonders, what would be the effect, on troop morale, of his (highly unlikely) scenario of Jordan's completely "unchallenged statements"?
Troops have fought and died for freedom of speech.
Moon is clearly lacking faith in a democracy where everyone has an equal right to speak. He comes off sounding something just short of paranoid.

What effect has the (real and present) lack of truth-telling by the Commander in Chief had on troop morale? That's the real question.
A line of soldiers refusing to return to Iraq is shattering evidence that our troops are questioning the reasons for the Iraq war.

Is anyone so blind that they cannot see that the Bush administration was responsible for America's reputation being "battered" abroad? And yet we blame journalists?

How could anyone be in denial about the fact that it was the gross misleading of the Bush administration, with their backhanding of the international community, which caused America's reputation to spiral downward?

Imagine: What if the Bushite-NeoCon crowd's statements were taken as truth in the lead-up to attacking Iraq?

No imagination necessary.
They were.

Self-righteous temerity has made real-life decisions about our nation going to war far too easily made, because of an absence of journalistic investigation through intimidation. NeoCons have created a narrative borne of idealism - a story with a nice-sounding moral vision. The problem is, in reality, it spells d-e-a-t-h for many inncocent people. This cult of death is hidden by the sweet-sounding folly of the NeoCon dream.

I submit to you that NeoCon temeriy and intimidation have directly contributed to the degradation of the traditional American values we share. Our culture has lost a respect for intellect, life, truth, honesty, and the forthright spirit that is required in a healthy open democratic society.

Life has been rendered far less precious in an atmosphere of right-wing intimidation and an all-too idealistic cult-style vision.

The cult of death reigns today, and if a journalist says one cautionary word about it, they are swiftly removed, with the help of right-wing blogger lynch-mobs, from the market's sight.

The reason we are at war in Iraq right now is because we were given reasons that were far less than true, and the media, most of them being afraid of the loss of advertiser-dollars, hardly questioned the government.

Eason Jordan raised questions and found out that you just cannot even mention your unfounded fears or suspicions in the public anymore, lest you be swept from the world of mainstream journalism. You can't even throw them up for discussion.

If the Eason Jordans of the market-driven mainstream are barred from professionally raising concerns, and the government continues to spout unchallenged lies, I see nothing but death for freedom of speech in the marketplace. Cultural propaganda is all the public will be allowed to see in the future.

I'm tiring of smokescreens. I'm tiring of right-wing idiots running roughshod over the decency and integrity of America while NeoCons spin their Utopian tales.

I respect life. Life has been cheapened. I love truth. Under the black lie-boot of the Bush leadership, the cult of NeoCon, and a concert of chirping right-wing morons, truth has suffered killing blows. Freedom to live in truth should be a treasured common value. In the Bush era, we are moving away from freedom in our own nation. Let's not sit on the sidelines and watch it happen.

Let's take our government back.

~~~~~~~~~

*A tip of the hat to Scrutiny Hooligans for the quote.

NRO Has No Defense For The Ones They Inspire

NRO Has No Defense For The Ones They Inspire

At NRO, Andrew McCarthy insists that the Wall Street Journal is wrong about the outcome of the Eason Jordan situation and it's not "kerfluffle". McCarthy claims that no one can fix the gravity of Jordan's offense with certainty because the tape was never released ( as if it would make a difference now ).

Attacking the Wall Street Journal is easier, I'd imagine, than NRO accepting accountability as representative and promoter of the ideals of their targeted reading audience. The NRO and the crowd who loves them have heavily contributed to a professional journalist losing his 23-year-long CNN career over conjecture at the bloggers' unwashed typing hands, and now the writers of NRO haughtily wish to separate themselves from those amateur blogging brutes who would have such uneducated motives!( cough! )

Coming from a radical right-wing megaphone that professionally harbors Jonah Goldberg, an ideologue who regularly chimes in on Iraq when he admits he's never even read a book on Iraq, I'm not impressed. I'm terribly sick of their hypocrisy.

Speaking of Goldberg, he wrote this line today (note the joyous-frick'n-head over-a-mantle referral)

"Jordan's head will hang alongside Howell Raines's, the editor of the New York frick'n Times and four top executives at CBS News."

These are not the words of a humble or professional journalist. Jonah's all ticked off because he's been the mainstream media's little-boy-out-in-the-cold for so long. So, with his NRO megaphone, he champions the blogger-destroyer cult:

"For the right-wing bloggers, they are the same sort of alternative that NRO has been for near a decade now and that National Review has been for 50. Conservatives still see ourselves as the out-party when it comes to the media establishment. Sure, we appear on op-ed pages and as talking heads, but almost always in the spirit of "the other view." This tokenism rarely extends to the executive suites or to the editorial offices."

While Goldberg freely admits to loving the fact that his "alternative" crowd bagged a big-time journalist, Jim Geraghty slithers away from the joy when he goes in front of a mianstream audience.

Geraghty appeared on the Jim Lehrer PBS News Hour today, and tried his hardest to make NRO, Powerline and Little Green Footballs look as if they were never donning their huntin' guns and going out loaded for bear the liberal media journalist du jour. I've never seen such blatant hypocrisy.

Today, Geraghty was the one who had a bad day on PBS. David Gergen expressed deep regret for what the vigilante bloggers did to Jordan. Jay Rosen was there to explain and defend journalistic principles. Geraghty was there to talk about what his crowd believes are bad things Eason Jordan has said in the past (having nothing whatsoever to do with the Davos stuation). Geraghty had no moral defense for his crowd...a mob of thugs and hacks who endeavor to work in concert to destroy a man and deny it later on.

Jonah Goldberg concluded his column about Eason Jordan by saying:

"..the liberals look like they want to switch places."

I'll conclude mine by saying I'm far too much of a decent and moral human being to agree with that statement.


UPDATE: Apparently, Eason Jordan's resignation wasn't enough for the Little Green Footballs crowd. It seems they are still navel-gazing about the part they played in destroying the 23-year career and reputation of a good and intelligent man. They are searching, it seems for even more reasons to reinforce the role they played in ruining the man's reputation, all after the fact. James Taranto has put them to shame, as well he should. Some of them don't appreciate the fact that I have spoken frankly about the topic. They do not like me, a blogging Jiminy Cricket, to be watching over them and appealing to their collective conscience, I suppose.

Letter to Romanesko: News judgment and majority rule

Letter to Romanesko: News judgment and majority rule

From DAVID McLEMORE:

"I find myself stunned to be in agreement with the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. Eason Jordan’s statements at Davos were ill-conceived and stupid. But hardly a firing offense. And CNN caved in to the hysterics of the largely blog-driven mob out for Jordan’s head.

I don't know Eason Jordan. Fact is, I rarely watch CNN, save when wars start or natural disasters wreak havoc. You know, breaking news. The rest of the time, CNN is too repetitive and self-referential to be useful. And that's the news programming. Let's not get started on the talk shows…

But the facts of Jordan's imprecisely stated concerns about the U.S. military's role in targeting journalists in Iraq -- what we know anyway -- were couched as opinion. And quickly rephrased when challenged that very day. Yet bloggers, relying heavily on their own opinions, told us exactly what Jordan meant. There was no doubt, no lack of certainty. We were also told how it would play in the major media outlets and how wrong that would be. And when Jordan's position became untenable to the corporate suits at CNN and they eagerly accepted his resignation, the blogs howled with glee. And put Jordan’s scalp next to Dan's.

When the Wall Street Journal and Corey Pein (now there’s a pairing!) suggest that the blogs rushed a bit too quickly to pile on Mr. Jordan, they are lambasted as anti-blog reactionary journalists who better get with the program. "Tomorrow belongs to me," the chorus sings.

Is this the lesson traditional journalism is supposed to learn from the blogs? Certainty based on little evidence? Opinion and snarky analysis masquerading at fact? Mind reading and a partisan rush-to-judgment as a substitute for nuance? Do we really want news judgment built on majority rule?"

Danny Schechter on Eason Jordan

Danny Schechter on Eason Jordan

Documentary filmmaker Danny Schechter explains how CNN wasn't interested in the Jordan Eason fight.

Fox News was. Hannity and Colmes called Danny in.

So Danny entered the Fox arena, the way Christians were fed to the lions.

"It was hard to shift the conversation back to the real issue – the killing of journalists and not what Eason Jordan said or didn't say – no one there seemed to know or really care in what was really a bash CNN exercise."

Then came the Fox viewers' letters.

There was no impartial mainstream forum for Danny Schechter.

This is what happens when we allow cultural propaganda to swell to monstrously tilted proportions.

Cathy Young - Ambivalent Over Professional Murder

Cathy Young - Ambivalent About Professional Murder

In the Boston Globe, columnist Cathy Young dabbles in soft-fallacy, and I have to ask myself "Why would she do that?"
Ms. Young says:

"One oddity is that, so far, no one knows exactly what Jordan said."

On its face, it's untrue that we don't know what Jordan said. There may not be a tape, but Jordan has freely admitted what he said and has even apologized and clarified his intent. Here are Jordan's own words, which were easy to find by research:

"I stressed insurgents are to blame for the vast majority of the 63 journalist deaths in Iraq. Second, when Congressman Franks said the 63 journalists killed in Iraq were the unfortunate victims of "collateral damage," I felt compelled to dispute that by pointing out journalists in Iraq are being targeted -- I did not say all journalists killed were targeted, but that some were shot at on purpose and were not collateral damage victims. In response to a question about whether I believed the U.S. military meant to kill journalists in Iraq, I said, no, I did not believe the U.S. military was trying to kill journalists in Iraq. Yet, unfortunately, U.S. forces have killed several people who turned out to be journalists. In several cases, the U.S. troops who killed those people aimed and fired at them, not knowing they were shooting at journalists. However tragic and, in hindsight, by Pentagon admission, a mistake, such a killing does not fall into the "collateral damage" category. In Iraq and Washington, I have worked closely and constructively with U.S. military and civilian leaders in an effort to heighten the odds of survival for the courageous journalists in Iraq."

If Cathy Young can credit bloggers for Eason Jordan's professional demise, she needs to equally credit bloggers like Rebecca MacKinnon, who have posted words straight from Jordan Eason's mouth (or e-mail, in this instance).

In Cathy's own words: "...a journalist should be the last person to traffic in unsupported and irresponsible innuendo." Cathy should have provided this key piece of information for her column.

HERE IS THE LINK

Note that Ms. Young throws up the red herring known as "backpedaling". While clever in its framing, it is no more than a code word for:
"Jordan Eason is liar and we will not believe him - no matter what. Ignore all his follow-up clarifications.".
See Ms. Young's quote:

Yet eyewitness accounts suggest that Jordan was not so much clarifying as backpedaling.

I strongly suggest that Cathy Young is not acting in professional good faith toward a fellow journalist by brushing off (and omitting) any of Eason Jordan's attempts to have a further conversation about the subject.

Above all, let's not forget that Jordan quit. If that's not accountability, I'm not sure what is.

"Many of those bloggers undoubtedly had an ideological agenda, but the fact is that they did some solid reporting -- and that some of their information came from liberals such as Representative Frank. In some quarters of the blogosphere, Jordan's resignation was met with an unpleasant "we got him!" gloating; but "gotcha" journalism is hardly limited to blogs. Like other media, the blogs can be vehicles for vendettas and witch-hunts -- as well as a tool for openness and accountability.

Mainstream journalists should resist the temptation to view Jordan as a victim of a right-wing lynch mob. His fatal wound was ultimately self-inflicted. And, if the "old media" don't learn some lessons from this incident, there will be more such wounds.

The "solid reporting" of which Ms. Young speaks is still, when all the smoke clears, nothing more than a case of sheer conjecture. Whether we have a tape or not, Jordan is guilty. The blogworld has already deemed it to be so, and Ms. Young seems to be joining with the throng.

Barney Frank gave his assessment of Jordan's statement and Frank's words played directly into the mob's storyline. I hope Frank will realize the part he played in this, whether witting or not.

Eason Jordan committed no act which could be qualified as an offense worthy of his resignation.

Yet, resigning was Eason's choice.

Eason Jordan's "fatal wound" was taken for CNN. Let's not neglect to call that fact to mind.

Young ends her column by casting a net of warning to the "old media", which is code for "liberal media"/MSM. This indicates, to me, that she feels powerless, as a journalist, to the whim of the mob. It also tells me, from my pragmatic understanding of this piece, that Young is ambivalent about the concerted effort of right-wing blogs to kill off their next MSM journalist du jour.

I'm not ambivalent. Cathy seems to be doing too much navel-gazing while her fellow journalists' careers are being gunned down in the name of a search for truth, which I perceive as no more than a concerted effort to destroy decent people's careers.

Wait until bloggers come for Cathy. She may become strong in her conviction when it's far too late.

As a columnist for Reason magazine, I was disappointed by Ms. Young's fuzzy position.

Eason Jordan & The Low-Purposed Angry Mob

"If you're going to do this open-source journalism, it should have a higher purpose. At times it did seem like an angry mob, and an angry mob using high technology, that's not good."

- Rony Abovitz, Davos attendee, the first web poster to 'write up' Eason Jordan

I think that says it all. It's exactly what I've been saying here at Iddybud.

So goes the saga of Eason Jordan and the low-purposed angry lynch-mob.

The Right-wing blog-mob avers, with a straight concerted face, that all they want is "truth", completely forgetting that they are part of the same truth which they have venomously pursued.


*source: NY Times

____________

Rony is also quoted by Howie Kurtz today:

"The head of the largest news organization in the world, afraid of himself. There is a Shakespearean sense of tragedy and drama in this story. Eason, prince of CNN, committs (sic) a last act of valor and attempts to restore grace to himself and his overlords. His actions are classic Bushido, the way of the Samurai warrior, sacrificing himself to protect his Masters from harm. Give him at least this."

MSM: Time to Scrutinize Attack-Bloggers

MSM: Time to Scrutinize Attack-Bloggers

The next time Howard Kurtz hears Jeff Jarvis insisting, to the public, that the aim was merely "truth" in the Easongate-hunting-down of Eason Jordan, he should remember to hold Jarvis to a higher standard than that to which he held him on CNN's Reliable Sources today.

Jarvis was speaking for the bloggers and others in the internet community who signed those petitions which were sent to CNN.

This was a lynching and a trial by blog with no offense sufficient to cause a 23-year news veteran to lose (or relinquish) his job in order to save the network from being unfairly tarnished.

I think that Howard Kurtz could have been better prepared.

He should have asked Jarvis to explain the easy-to-find words of the very citizens of the blogworld who are targeting mainstream journalists.

Here are some examples. They weren't very hard to find.

If bloggers and everyday people are doing the targeting and crucifying, then we need to start holding them to standards and scrutiny. It's professional careers they are seeking to destroy.

Their Neo-McCarthyism is too easily carried out, and the mainstream is letting them get away with professional murder all too easily.

Why aren't mainstream journalists asking more questions?
Are they afraid they'll be next on the hit list?

________________

At Dean's World, my blogging-colleague (and someone I consider to be a friend) Joe Gandelman posts a partial transcript from the Reliable Sources show today:

"Bloggers didn't want his head, most of us didn't. We wanted the truth," said Jeff Jarvis today on Reliable Sources. There were no other bloggers on the CNN show to counter Jarvis.

I have seen and heard the real motives of the Right too many times in my years spent on internet political forums to believe a word of this. "Liberal media" must die.

I hope Joe and other sensible people will think carefully about what I'm saying here. This does not look like justice to me. They're playing with real people's careers here. This is no game.

Unfairly tarnished, Eason Quits

Blog-Trial: Unfairly tarnished, Eason Quits

"I have decided to resign in an effort to prevent CNN from being unfairly tarnished by the controversy over conflicting accounts of my recent remarks regarding the alarming number of journalists killed in Iraq. I have devoted my professional life to helping make CNN the most trusted and respected news outlet in the world, and I would never do anything to compromise my work or that of the thousands of talented people it is my honor to work alongside."

-- Eason Jordan LINK-ABC News

While not particularly emotional one way or the other about Jordan's actual decision, I will say that this clearly was a case of blog-thuggery and unfair tarnishing, the kind of which I had spoken earlier in the week, and for which I was soundly whipped by Jim Geraghty of the National Review.

The 'Right-wing mouth machine' would like us all to think that Eason Jordan was "bad" and "unAmerican" for saying what he said. CNN has been complicit by their reticence to talk about tough issues. They wound up to be the biggest loser. They lost Eason Jordan. Eason was guilty before being proven innocent by no other process except one: the blog-trial.

The right-wing blogs seem to be the Supreme Court of the blogging community at large.

Why should this be so?

Why are no other rational voices important?

There was never a fair hearing anywhere in the blogworld or in the mainstream media over this case. There was only conjecture and a big agenda, which was to round up enough right-wing activists in the monkey-machine to petition CNN in the hopes they'd fire a man who was branded as a devil for daring to speak out for journalists' protection in a conference most believed was, for the most part, a private panel discussion.

These were "Easongate's" aims:

The purpose of this blog from the very beginning was as follows:

· Act as a clearinghouse for information related to Mr. Jordan's recent and past statement concerning the United States military.
· Provide analysis and commentary on the developing situation.
· Advocate CNN to take real and meaningful disciplinary action against Mr. Jordan.
· Create a petition expressing the public's displeasure with Mr. Jordan's statements.
· Gather information on CNN's advertisers and make this information available to the public.

The activists at Easongate still want the tape. (So Rush Limbaugh can play it 100 times a day *sarcasm*).

Jordan's decision to resign is neither here nor there to me, personally.

I will, however, explain to you where my passion comes in.

I am proud and happy to be a political blogger.

I am free to speak about issues which I believe are crucial to the health of our democracy and no one can fire me .

They can only target me for critcism, as National Review did. I believe that's a good thing. As President Bush would say, "Bring 'em on."

Larry Kudlow claims that CNN has been trying desperately to make the story go away. He says that "bloggers are doing their duty" by calling upon CNN to talk about the issue. To an extent, I agree with him there. CNN should have aired the issue out in public and began to talk about it realistically, from 'Day One'.

However, I have been 'trying desperately' to keep this story alive, from my own point of view. The National Review wishes to delegitimize anyone in the mainstream media who will not toe the White House line like good soldiers. As defenders of freedom and truth, journalists are charged with the duty of getting to the heart and core of matters, even when it means having to have a painful national conversation about those matters. Freedom has nothing to fear from the truth. So why are we so afraid?

In this case, CNN didn't want to have that conversation, the right-wing insisted upon it, and we all have lost something precious in the process. Until mainstream media admits they are the lap dogs of the White House and right-wing, they will always lose.

The people who are calling themselves "new media" are already giving themselves "credit" for Eason Jordan's resignation. I wonder if they realize (or care) that the "credit" signifies a degradation of fairness and freedom of speech in America?

CNN failed to realize, recognize, and appreciate the power of blogs who are in lock-step league with those in the "new media" who are trying to destroy the long-accepted scope and meaning of a journalist's freedom of speech. If that's "new media", count me out.

When I see blogs being used in a way in which I believe American journalism will approach another step closer to being pure propaganda, I will say so.

I'm saying so.
- Jude

____________________

Jay Rosen has posted a comprehensive listing of links and commentary about the resignation.


At the Washington Post, Howard Kurtz quotes Jay Rosen:

Jay Rosen [said] he didn't think Jordan "had engaged in a firing offense." Bloggers "made a lot of noise" about the Jordan flap, Rosen said. "But there was basic reporting going on -- finding the people who were there, getting them to make statements, comparing one account to another -- along with accusations and conspiracy thinking and the politics of paranoia and attacks on the MSM, or mainstream media."

Rebecca MacKinnon, who worked with Jordan at one time, says in her final thoughts about the issue:

"I think Eason Jordan resigned because he knew that if the Davos tape came out it would make the situation worse, not better."

Sisyphus has said:

"The tape, and Eason Jordan, would have allowed a full airing of this issue. Pull the skeleton out, shake out the paranoia, shake hands and go back to work.
Jordan's gone. The idea remains."

*My comment- While I understand, I will comment that Easongate is still heavily pressing for the release of the tape. J'accuse: I think there are far deeper motives here than getting people to "shake hands".

Jim Geraghty at National Review Online:

"I would have preferred that the tape be released, that the public have a chance to mull over his comments, and then let Jordan face whatever consequences were appropriate. I have a feeling that the discussion of the "blogs as a lynch mob" is going to get a lot of coverage in the coming days."

*My comment: Hmmm. It sounds as if Jim is saying Right-wing activists got their wish far too soon, before maximum damage could be done to Jordan's reputation and to CNN. And now he expects that the activism, in itself, will be criticized..perhaps even seen for what it is. I hope so. If the hangman's rope fits, the ones holding it must learn how to explain it when it's still caught up in their grasp.


At Editors Weblog, they title their blogpost: Eason Jordan affair: when bloggers appear as the sons of Senator McCarthy

"Sad conclusion in the Eason Jordan affair (see below the New York Times article), sad day for the freedom of expression in America and sad day again for the future of blogging: the defense of the US army honor seemed more important to some bloggers that the defense of reporters' work! Nevertheless, there is one advantage in this story: masks are fallen! Within the honest community of bloggers, some of them claimed to be the sons of the First Amendment, they just were the sons of Senator McCarthy."

My Comment: Well-said.


Steve Lovelady, Columbia Journalism Review's CJR Daily, has written to Jay Rosen:

"The salivating morons who make up the lynch mob prevail. (Where is Jimmy Stewart when we need him ?) This convinces me more than ever that Eason Jordan is guilty of one thing, and one thing only -- caring for the reporters he sent into battle, and haunted by the fact that not all of them came back. Like Gulliver, he was consumed by Lilliputians."

Ummm..Steve...here's your Jimmy Stewart. Is anyone listening? *waving*

-- Jude